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>> Saturday, June 11, 2011

I left the hair salon with the thought in mind that I would stop by the cleaners on the way home … to get that errand out of the way. But there was nothing at the cleaners for me to pick up.

I adjusted.

Heading down the street toward home, I could see the dreaded orange “road work” signs. As I got closer I read “traffic revision ahead.” Not wanting to deal with that, I turned right to go over to the next street that would take me home. After a few blocks I turned left to head home. Guess what? Road work signs ahead.

I adjusted again.

But now I was passing by the gas station, so I might as well buy my gas and mark another thing off my “to do” list. Traffic cones blocked the pumps that would allow me to have the gas tank on the correct side.

More adjusting.

I had to drive all the way around the Sun Mart to come at the pumps from the other direction. I opened my gas tank, slid the credit card in the slot, lifted the gas hose from the holder and placed it in the tank. The screen said, “begin fueling” but when I squeezed on the handle, no gas was flowing. After repeatedly attempting to achieve fueling, I had to ask for help.

Again with the adjustments.

As the man was explaining to me that someone had inadvertently turned off my pump while they were working on the pumps next to it, a car pulled up behind me and the lady was motioning to me. I walked to where I could hear what she was saying.

“I’m running out of gas. Could you please hurry?”

Actually, I couldn’t. A panel was removed from the backside of the pump, mysterious movements were seen, and then my knight in shining armor arrived. The whole process had to be repeated with the credit card and lifting the handle, but this time it worked. I pulled my car forward as quickly as I could. The car behind me still had enough gas to pull up to the tank and begin fueling.

As I drove home, I re-lived the last few minutes. That’s exactly how life is.

Maybe you had plans to go to college, but then your mom lost her job … and you had some adjustments to make. Or perhaps that marriage made in heaven didn’t work out after all. That certainly calls for traffic revisions ahead. And then there is the issue of squeezing the handle for the purpose of getting gas. Sometimes we can squeeze all we want, but the desired result just doesn’t happen.

As a child, life seems so simple. But as you grow older, it becomes complicated. How good are you at adjustments?